Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Good Try Devil- but Not This Time.

July 18, 2011- The day started off really good. I was able to get my errands run, caught up on laundry, and I had decided to take a nap. 10 mins after I laid down, the doorbell rang. Ricky D answered the door, and he quickly came to me and said "Mom, there's a man at the door that wants to talk to you." *sigh* Gosh, all I wanted was a nap.

I go to the door, and the gentleman had a paper in his hand and he asks me to step outside so he could talk to me. I knew at that instant that this was not going to be good news.

"Ma'm do you live here?"

-Yes....

"Do you rent this house or make the mortgage payments?"

- I've been renting this house for almost 2yrs from a woman by the name of Kristina Sena. Why all the questions, your starting to scare me, what's going on?

"Well Ma'm, the woman you are renting from hasn't been making her payments on the house in over 9 months. Steve Holifield sent me over here to tell you that eviction papers will filed at the courthouse tomorrow, and he will be foreclosing on this house."

-Are you kidding me?

"I wish I was, and are you Becky Beardslee married to Devin?"

-Yes (at this point I was so shocked and mad that tears were welling up in my eyes, and I couldn't stop them.

"Gosh I've known Devin for years, good man. Please don't get upset. I'm Mike Eaton, do you remember me?

Turns out Mike had been asking Steve if he had a house available to rent/buy for his nephew that would soon be moving to town. Mr. Holifield told him about the house we were in and asked him to come look at it and tell whoever was in it to hit the road. Nice huh? Coarse after Mike told him that he knew us, and Mr. Holifield knows Ricky & Donna very well, they weren't going to do that.

I then talked to Devin, Donna & Ricky. Devin called and spoke to Mr. Holifield who told him that he tried many times to get in touch with our landlord, and she never returned his calls and never would sign for her registered mail. He told Dev that he would call him in the next couple of days after he talked to Kristina. (Devin gave him ALL of her contact #'s)

Next, I called her and asked what the heck is going on. Explained that a gentleman came to the door and told us the house payments weren't being made and now the house is going to be foreclosed, and we were going to be left out in the street. She started stuttering, and said she always pays the house note and that Mr. Holifield is a liar. I asked her if she kept reciepts, copies of checks so that she could give to him, and she said "No, I don't keep that kind of stuff." Seriously? Seriously? I go back and forth with her, and it's pretty obvious shes lying, nothing she is saying is making sense at all. I asked how she could do this, knowing that a family lives here, and we could have been homeless if we didn't know them.

The house is really old. Kitchen is so small, and things were breaking, leaking, and getting her to fix things was like pulling teeth. It's NOT my dream home by no means at all. At the time we were moving to Crane, it was the only thing available in town so we had to take it. She was a horrible landlord. Devin HATED dealing with her. Every other month she would ask for the rent early, cause she was either going to be out of town, or something was going on. A day after I had spoke to her on the phone, she called and asked me if were interested in buying the house, and if so, how many money can we come up with as a down payment? Now, any smart person could clearly see that she was trying to get more money out of us to pay off her debt with Steve. Isn't that great? She also told me that she was giving us a 30 days notice to either buy the house, or leave because she needs to sell it. Really now? Sell a house that does not belong to her.

I immediatley began looking around town for a house to rent or lease. Buying wasn't an option because our plan is as soon as Ricky graduates we are going to move back to the College Station area. With school around the corner, new teachers moving in, nothing was available except the new apartments on the south end of town. A friend of mine (Jerwyn)that I went to school with, is the property manager there. As soon as I walked in to see them, I loved them. It's actually bigger than the house we were in. Kitchen was big & open to the living room. The kids loved it too.

I filled out an application, gathered all the necessary paperwork she needed. Everything was a go for us on our end, all the property manager needed was an email, fax, or something from Kristina saying that we did indeed live in her house & that we paid rent on time without any hassles. Jerwyn did talk to her, and explained her that she was made aware of our living situation and relayed her that this was the ONLY place in Crane to move to. Kristina proceeded to tell her that we were horribe tenants, she never knew from month to month if we were going to pay our rent, and she would not recommend us to live anywhere. Now I was floored. Sick to my stomach & shocked that this woman would EVER say that about my family. Jerwyn was very professional with her, and said again, she needed something from her about out payment history for the last 24monts. Kristina said maybe she could get her something in the next two weeks. Seriously? Jerwyn told her that she had a unit available the following week that we could get into, but she really needed the document for our file. Her response "I don't care if they don't have any other place to go, it's not my problem." I was able to go to the bank, and get copies of checks, front & back, made out to her along with a copy of our lease to show that we were never late. EVER.

For the next 3 days Jerwyn called her a total of 6x, and I called and texted her as well. She never answered.

On July 25th, Pyscho woman called and left me a voicemail asking me when I was going to be making my rent payment for August. I'm pretty sure I saw Devin actually breathe fire. Who possibly has big enough balls to call and ask for that? I composed myself, took some deep breaths and called her back. I told that we were not going to give her another dime. Explained to her again, that being caught in the middle of someone's mess is not where my family needs to be. She was very ticked off and said that she didn't care if we believed her or not, she doesn't owe Mr. Holifield a dime. All I could say was "really?"

After that she was just nasty. I told her that her comment that we were horrible tenats was ludacris and comes back and says well everything I told her was true. I wanted to cuss her out so bad, but I didn't. Nothing at all was going to come out of doing that. My come back to that was "You go and ask anyone in town about us and I bet my family name has a heck of alot more plus's than yours ever will." I then asked her to please give me her husband's number so that I could have Devin talk to him, for a week straight Kristina bugged me to have Devin call her, and she called him over and over. He just wasn't going to do that. He had nothing good to say to her, and thought that maybe he could talk man to man with her husband. She wasn't about to give his number up. She kept saying that his number was a work number and not for personal use. *sigh* That only told us he didn't know. Before we ended our conversation, she asked me once again if we were going to be paying the rent for Aug cause she needed to get bills paid. I ended by telling her that I refuse to pay her another dime, and this house will be left spotless, and we expect our deposit back.

In one of Dev's conversation's with Steve, he explained to D that the woman who had been keeping his books had a baby and had been gone. He was operating off an honors system with his tentants. Last payment he recieved from her was in Jan 11', which caught her up though April 09'. That's not a mis-type. We moved in August 09'. Our rent at that house was $750, her payment to Mr. Holifield was $376. Ouch for us, but we paid it every month. What the heck she was doing with that money is beyond me. I did find out that she went to Hawaii last month...isn't that nice? Couldn't pay her mortage, but she could certainly go on trips. No regard at all for anyone at all but herself.

Enough though the devil was working so hard to keep us from moving into something nicer & bigger, the good Lord paved a path for us to win this battle. Even though we could have worked a deal out with Steve to stay in that house, we as a family decided we wanted to leave & wash our hands of that place. I look around here each day & thank God so much for this blessing. Moving in the harsh heat of July/Aug is not an easy thing to do, but we did it. The kids were so helping and actually did 98% of it. I have the best kids ever. We also got help from our good friends Ronnie & Marina, and other babies Kristen & Brandon. Thank you guys so very much.

So now you know what it feels like when someone takes advantage of you, lies to you, then leaves you out in the cold wondering what just happened and how one human being can be so insensitive to another. ...karma?

Our lives are crazy, funny, and at times sad. With us you just never really know what to expect. We try hard to do things the right way, the right way for us that is. We've fallen, but you will never be able to keep us down!